In Covering RNC Roll Call, Differing Tactics on Cable News

The Republican National Convention just nominated Mitt Romney to be the Republican candidate for President in November’s election. New Jersey put Romney’s delegate count over the top.

In covering the Roll Call, the three general cable news channels took different approaches.

Fox News cut between pool footage of the Roll Call and segments with some of its political analysts. It took a few commercial breaks as well. It included the number of delegates Romney secured as well as the number needed to clinch in on-screen graphics, but left out the delegates secured by Ron Paul, as well as by others. Update: I forgot the obvious, the channel cut into “The Five” with Megyn Kelly and Bret Baier anchoring.

CNN didn’t bring in political analysts, instead choosing to just run the pool feed. It included Ron Paul and the other candidates in its on-screen graphics, and left the graphics on-screen even during commercial breaks. At one point it also had a satellite showing the current location of Hurricane Isaac in the lower-right.

MSNBC switched between Roll Call and usual “Hardball” segments hosted by Chris Matthews. In the graphics showing the national delegate totals, it only included Romney. It also took a handful of commercial breaks.

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